Odyssey Books 11 & 12

After reading book 11, I was beginning to wonder how long this was taking Ulysses to tell his stories. I know that it takes up a lot of pages :) I was wondering also, how do you dig with a sword? It seems that when Ulysses was digging the ditch on his journey to Hades place, he was using the blade of his sword. When Ulysses was with the ghosts, what were the other men thinking? And what was the goal of this journey? He didn't do much except talk to the ghosts. . . There were some really awful deaths in this book, as well as in book 12, and I was wondering how many more ways can someone die? I'm sure I will be surprised by how others die though too. 
In book 12, I was reminded of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis. I was reminded of this because of the Sirens and how there was the temptations of evil when they went up to the Witch's Island. It was a powerful magic that the Witch used and it almost got some of the crew. There are other ways that it reminds me of this, but I won't write it all out. When they got to the Sirens, why could only Ulysses hear them? Why didn't they affect him in the way that it did the others. And if there was wax in the crew's ears, how could they hear when Ulysses begged an prayed, but not the Sirens? When Eurylochus told the men to kill the cows, how did Ulysses know what the men said? And did Ulysses tell them of the horrible things that would surely happen to them if they did? He must have not told them the full effects of it since they did it anyways. . . It was really easy to understand for the most part, although there were really long sentences in some parts of the assigned books.